Popular Sovereignty And Federal Supremacy

Rising from a regional country to a global major power was a historical ambition before the US after the founding of this new republic. Therefore, an appropriate restructuring of the political framework is extremely necessary for this aim. Actually, the principle underlying the foundation of the new country was"Popular Sovereignty", the early interpretation of which was that this power would be delegated to the states. This tradition was so deeply vested that it had to be re-interpreted innovatively. Publius, however, in unfolding the deficiency of the confederation for the development of the country, enunciated that the only representative of popular sovereignty should be the Federation, the exclusive entity able to fulfill the true intention of forming a country and establishing a government. Based on this presumption, the founding fathers depicted the fundamental structure of the political system, underscoring the function of the federal system and distributing the powers between federal government and states mainly as the supremacy of the federal authority which is solely capable of realizing the expectation of the design of government.This federal pattern is closely combined with the idea of popular sovereignty, i.e., the supremacy is entirely dependent on the popular sovereignty. The theoretical establishment by Publius significantly impacted the creation of Constitution of the United States. But Constitution in ipse is no more than a text, which without application to the real political operation would not have reached its factual control and implication on the politics. Then, there should be a Supreme Court in the whole ideal picture delineated by Publius. Due to the conformity of its political and constitutional philosophy, its uncentered position in the distribution of powers and sufficient political experiences and legal knowledge of its principal figures, Marshall's Court played an unrivaled role in propelling the enforcement of the Constitution. By interpreting the Constitution, they gradually acquired the status of ultimate judge in deciding the political framework, successfully converting the political designing into constitutional interpretation.Consequently, an unaltered theme from Publius and Marshall's Court was thesupremacy of the federal government over the states based on the theory of Popular Sovereignty. But the difference was that Publius discussed this theme as a political planning while Marshall's Court settled the problems in interpreting the Constitution, deepening and specifying this theme, so that a primary scene formed as the continuance between the theoretical design and legal interpretation. This could also be deemed as a primary strategy in the foundation of the United States.Therefore, it is only after the understanding of the evolvements in the political themes around the foundation of US that we could ever observe the systems of the modern political framework of a nation and give an explanation on them in legal theory. This is also conducive to further the interest of studying legal theory.